Daddy Day Camp (review)
Full disclosure. I only saw the first hour of the 90-minute Daddy Day Camp. I didn’t storm out of the screening in disgust -- it was a matter a logistics wherein the very late-starting Camp was going to run into my next screening across town -- but if I were going to break my record of never, ever storming out of a movie in disgust, this would have been the movie to claim that honor. An excruiciating stew of kindergarten-level toilet humor and absurd (and false) sentimentality, this utterly unnecessary sequel to the 2003 movie about men attempting -- and failing -- to behave in anything approaching a parental manner will drive audiences of all ages and inclinations to gouge their eyes out. Eddie Murphy has been replaced by Cuba Gooding Jr. (whose Oscar surely must be revoked) doing an embarrassing minstrel performance as the new owner of a rundown summer camp that features exploding toilets, a crashing school bus, and juvenile charges who behave like zoo animals. Astonishingly, it makes the unendurable 2003 original look good, and summery cult classics like Meatballs look like Bergman. It’s absolutely impossible to imagine a universe in which the final 30 minutes make up for what comes before.
(Technorati tags: Daddy Day Camp)
rated PG for mild bodily humor and language
official site | IMDB
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comments
posted by Runster (Thu Aug 09 07, 5:28AM)
Now, I'm not gonna comment on the movie (witch I haven't seen, and doubt I ever will. Cuba Gooding makes me wanna pour liquid drain cleaner in my eyes), but I find it a tad lazy to review a movie you haven't seen all the way through.
I know, I know. It's an appalingly bad, "family"-oriented, Cuba Gooding-starring pile of manure. But still, Would you have walked out if it had been a more "important" movie? What if Spiderman had sucked, and there was another screening across town. Would half a movie have been good enough to write a review from then?. And the other way around. If the first hour is just brilliant, surely the second half must be just as good, on to the next screening, or? Why waste both your time, and ours, reviewing half a movie? As Hunter S. Thompson said it: If it's worth doing, It's worth doing right...
posted by MaryAnn (Thu Aug 09 07, 9:57AM)
I think I explained myself perfectly adequately. You are free, of course, to disagree. Sorry I wasted your time.
posted by Jurgan (Fri Aug 10 07, 9:29PM)
It's sad. Watching the previews for this, I thought it looked like it might be a genuinely funny, sweet movie. Then I saw someone get hit in the crotch. I'm not saying no movie should ever have a character get hit between the legs, but if it's shown in the previews, that tells a lot about what kind of audience they're catering to. The shame of it is that I think a genuinely good movie could be made out of middle aged men discovering their calling is in raising children, something that is traditionally women's work. Like I say, it's sad.
posted by MaryAnn (Sat Aug 11 07, 10:01AM)
It's been done. It's called *Mr. Mom.*
posted by Tonio Kruger (Mon Aug 13 07, 9:28PM)
I wouldn't argue that "Mr. Mom" was that great a movie. Better than this, though...Most likely. Not that's saying much...
posted by MaryAnn (Mon Aug 13 07, 10:11PM)
*Mr. Mom* isn't great. But it is honest and relatively realistic and genuinely sweet.